Thoughts on Life, Love, Politics, Hypocrisy and Coming Out in Mid-Life

Thursday, May 17, 2018

May 16, 2018: A Very Bad Day for Trump

Recently I heard political pundits talking about the exhaustion many Americans are experiencing as they try to keep up with the breaking news stories swirling around the Trump/Pence regime and the Russiagate investigation, not to mention the short term news distractions that seemingly are manufactured almost daily by Der Trumpenführer. Wednesday was a day that saw numerous stories break, none of which portend well for Trump and/or his co-conspirators and sycophants. The day began with the news that the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee released a report finding that Russia had indeed sought to interfere in the 2016 presidential election. The story was so damning that even Fox News was forced to report on it no doubt to the shock of Fox viewers who have been constantly told that claims of Russian interference were all false. Here's a taste:

“Committee staff have spent 14 months reviewing the sources, tradecraft, and analytic work, and we see no reason to dispute the conclusions,” {Senator Richard} Burr said in a statement. “There is no doubt that Russia undertook an unprecedented effort to interfere with our 2016 elections. . . . [Senator Mark] Warner said, “After a thorough review, our staff concluded that the ICA conclusions were accurate and on point. The Russian effort was extensive, sophisticated, and ordered by President Putin himself for the purpose of helping Donald Trump and hurting Hillary Clinton.”

Next came the release of transcripts by the Senate Judiciary Committee of the testimony of the participants in the infamous Trump Tower meeting, including Trump, Jr., who made utterly ridiculous statements strongly suggesting he was lying. A column in the Washington Post looks at this debacle for Trump. Here are excerpts:

[S]everal significant facts emerged. First, notes from Paul
Manafort, who was present at the meeting, contain some curious clues
including “Offshore — Cyprus” and “Active sponsors of RNC,” presumably meaning
the Republican National Committee. This is the first we’ve heard of these
meeting topics. It is of course illegal to take foreign assistance for an
election campaign (more about that later), but it is noteworthy that the
purpose of the meeting (adoptions) according to a White House
statement — which Trump Jr. conceded may
have included his father’s input — was the last item on Manafort’s list,
perhaps an afterthought thrown in after discussions about far more
controversial matters . . . The
notion that no one from the campaign ever met with any Russians to discuss the
campaign looks more and more like a lie.Second, Trump Jr. says he cannot remember (!) if he talked
to his father after the meeting or the calls to set up the meeting
(although there is a record of a four-minute call from a blocked number, followed
by a short call with Emin Agalarov, who initiated the meeting). Failing to
remember if he talked to his father after a group meeting with Russians strikes
one as entirely improbable, but in any event, he says he later talked to Hope
Hicks about the meeting, which is the virtually the same as talking to
President Trump directly.

Third, this is confirmation of eagerness to receive something of
value (dirt on Clinton) from a foreign source. And that’s a big legal problem,
according to campaign finance and ethics gurus. “Federal law provides that ‘No
person shall knowingly solicit, accept, or receive from a foreign national any
contribution or donation,’ ” former White House ethics counsel Norman Eisen
tells me. “That is not limited to only cash contributions but also
includes in kind ones, such as the opposition research that Don Jr. and
through him the Trump campaign solicited in connection with the Trump
Tower meeting.” He adds, “As time passes and more information comes out such as
the Senate release today, the evidence of collusion (or rather, of the
various legal claims that we loosely refer to using that term) becomes
stronger and stronger.” Even though the actions occurred before the election, Trump may
find himself in a legal fix. Constitutional scholar and co-author of a new book
“To End a Presidency: The Power of
Impeachment” Laurence Tribe says, “Under the U.S. criminal
code, soliciting a bribe is an independent offense even if the bribe doesn’t
come through. And under the federal election code, soliciting prohibited
foreign assistance in a U.S. election is an offense even if the assistance
isn’t provided. The Trump family’s problems don’t end there, since ‘acts of
solicitation’ can become overt acts that form part of a conspiracy to commit
another crime.”

One final note: Whenever Trump shouts “No collusion,” the
response to that should be: “There’s airtight evidence of attempted conspiracy
by the highest levels in the Trump campaign to obtain foreign help.” As
Bergmann puts it, “According to Donald Trump Jr.’s own testimony, he was
disappointed by the meeting because the collusion the Russians were offering
wasn’t good enough. So we know the Trump campaign wanted to collude and we know
the Russians ran an aggressive campaign to help Trump. Given the mounting
evidence it really isn’t a question anymore if they colluded, it’s a question
of how deep the collusion went.” No wonder Trump is so freaked out about the
Russia investigation.

Then there was the bombshell via New York Magazine that reported that Michael Cohen was gathering large amounts of foreign money that was being passed through to Trump and his family. Here are highlights from that story:

Last
night, the Daily
Mail reported a development in the Michael Cohen saga of seismic
scale. In a December 2016 meeting in Trump Tower, the British tabloid reports,
Cohen asked Ahmed Al-Rumaihi, who runs a $100 billion Qatari investment fund,
to send him “millions” which, the story claims, would go “through him to Trump
family members.”

The
Daily Mail report deepens the trouble in two crucial ways. First, it
extends Cohen’s scheme from domestic corporations (or, in one case, domestic
corporations controlled
by foreign entities) to direct overseas fundraising. Second, and more
ominously, it alleges that Cohen funneled the money to Trump’s family. . . . Now
the story suggests he was enriching them, transforming the Cohen bribery story
into a Trump bribery story.

[T]here
is plenty of contextual evidence to support the charge. One is that, after
Stormy Daniels’s lawyer Michael Avenatti published
Trump Tower surveillance video of Al-Rumaihi, he suspiciously
denied attending the meeting, only for his firm to admit it later. Another
reason is that, multiple reports have linked both Qatar as a source of players
in the broader web of shady Trump financial dealings with Russia, and Cohen as
a key conduit. So it would fit the pattern for Cohen to be soliciting a bribe
from Qatar on behalf of the Trump family. And yet another reason is Trump’s
notorious resentment of other people making money off of him. If Cohen used
Trump’s election to solicit bribes, it seems highly likely Trump would demand a
taste.

And then there is another reason to credit this allegation: Direct
bribery of Trump is still happening, in plain sight. Trump has defied all modern precedent by
retaining control of his family company while serving as president, allowing
interests domestic or foreign to curry favor by enriching him personally.

What’s clearly true is that the usual restraints against such behavior
are altogether absent. There is an old phrase that used to be bandied around
the media constantly: “the appearance of a conflict of interest.” Officials
were held to this standard, which required them to avoid even looking like they
might be tempted to allow their personal interest to influence their decisions.
And of course, petty corruption often won out even in the face of this
putatively strict public ethic. But it had to travel through a wick Roger et of rules
guarding against outright corruption.

The Trump family, by contrast, is operating in a rules-free
environment. The appearance of a conflict of interest is not even in question.
There are proven conflicts everywhere, and the only question is straight-out
quid pro quo bribery. The only authority empowered to uncover the alleged
bribes is Robert Mueller.

Lastly, as icing on the cake, news broke that subpoenas
were delivered late last week to lawyers representing Jason Sullivan, a social
media and Twitter specialist Trump sycophant Roger Stone hired to work for an independent political
action committee he set up to support Trump. Reuters has details:

U.S. Justice Department Special Counsel Robert
Mueller has issued two subpoenas to a social media expert who worked for
longtime Donald Trump adviser Roger Stone during the 2016 presidential election
campaign.

The subpoenas
suggest that Mueller, who is probing Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S.
presidential election, is focusing in part on Stone and whether he might have
had advance knowledge of material allegedly hacked by Russian intelligence and
sent to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who published it.

Stone appeared
before the U.S. House of Representatives Intelligence Committee last September
and denied allegations of collusion between the president’s associates and
Russia during the election. “I am aware of no evidence whatsoever of collusion
by the Russian state or anyone in the Trump campaign,” Stone told reporters at
the time.

According to
sources familiar with the ongoing investigation, Mueller also has been probing
whether anyone associated with the Trump campaign may have helped Assange or
the Russians time or target the release of hacked emails and other social media
promoting Trump or critical of Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton.

Sullivan
told Reuters that he heads Cyphoon.com, a social media firm, and “worked on the
Trump campaign serving as Chief Strategist directly to Roger J. Stone Jr.”

Personally, I consider any news that is bad news for Trump on the Russiagate front as wonderful news for America and same, rational America and supporters of the rule of law. My only fear is what lunatic thing Trump might do as he strives to distract the media and the public from the seemingly tightening noose.

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Out gay attorney in a committed relationship; formerly married and father of three wonderful children; sometime activist and political/news junkie; survived coming out in mid-life and hope to share my experiences and reflections with others.
In the career/professional realm, I am affiliated with Caplan & Associates PC where I practice in the areas of real estate, estate planning (Wills, Trusts, Advanced Medical Directives, Financial Powers of Attorney, Durable Medical Powers of Attorney); business law and commercial transactions; formation of corporations and limited liability companies and legal services to the gay, lesbian and transgender community, including birth certificate amendment.

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